Into September Already

Hello!  Hope that everyone is doing well!  We wanted to post a few pictures from the last few weeks and give some updates!  We are house sitting for the next 4 weeks so it has been really nice to move into the house this last weekend and have a kitchen, living room and everything!  We have enjoyed that a lot.  The house came with a dog that we have enjoyed walking and training to sleep on its pad on the floor, so that has been an adventure!  We have started a new couple's bible study and that has been great as well.  School is well underway at this point and our second year feels a lot smoother than our first year!

Below are some pictures from the last few weeks, one from a scuba dive and two from a day on the beach where we hung out and learned how to paddle a surfboard, which is more challenging than you might think but a lot of fun!
 

 

 

 

 

Hello! We have found ourselves back and school and very busy the last few weeks as we have gotten back into the swing of things. We have started our next scuba diving certification and got to have a lot of fun driving underwater scooters the other day! We found a turtle that usually just swims away, but on our scooters we could keep up with it so we were able to stay pretty close to it and that was really neat! School is off to a good start as we are on day 4 with students! It feels like a long weekend since last school year and it is different to have new students but very exciting. So far things are going well and we are both enjoying our students and classes so far. In a couple of weeks we are starting up youth fellowship and we are certainly excited about that and could always use prayer for the year. We are also excited for the first Husker game coming up this weekend and we really hope it is on TV out here! Not to much else to report just getting school running smoothly at this point and hoping that everyone is doing well!

 

Back on Kwaj

We have been back on the island for a little under 2 weeks now and time is already flying as we started our first day back at work!  Hard to believe the school year is starting up again, but ready or not the school year is beginning!  The last two weeks have found us getting over jet lag, getting our rooms set up both at home and in our classrooms again and readjusting to island life.  Readjustments included new bike chain and repairs, cleaning and other fun things like that!  We had lots of people welcome us back to the island and that has been really nice!  

Here is a picture out our balcony at the hotel in Hawaii.  The taxi ride to the hotel was an adventure but the view was great and eating at Roy's was as good as advertised!  Definitely the best restaurant we will go to for a long, long time!  

Here we are going over to Ebeye for the afternoon to give some new teachers a tour.  They got new ferry boats, which are fast and nice!  

The kids on Ebeye always love posing for a picture!  

Some floats waiting for us to lounge in off emon beach! We have had more rain in the 2 weeks we have been here than Nebraska has seen all year probably, but this was a nice day for some relaxing on the beach!

Green sea turtle swam around Matt a few times while he was snorkeling

Hung out with an octopus during a dive off the beach one afternoon!

We miss everyone back home a lot and were so thankful for all of the fun times we had with everyone back home!  We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying what sounds like some cooler weather in Nebraska!

A Year In Review

Almost one year ago today we started our new journey on Kwajalein. As we are once again having our last night in the states before returning we thought we would post some of our favorite pictures from the last year! We also thought we would share a few from our summer at home with our family and friends!

There you have it the pictures that show us why we are returning for another year! We look forward to see what the Lord has in store for us this year and being able to share it with you guys!

SUMMER TIME!!!

With loveing family and friends!

Family vacation with the Gerbers in Minnesota.



Aunt Mindi and Cameron had fun hanging out together!

Mindi's sister's wedding. Congrats Nikki and Cortney!

Aunt Mindi getting to share time with two of her favorite boys :)

Uncle Matt and sweet Camden. Happy first birthday!

Summer lovin'!

My dear sweet husband planned the most amazing date for me. One that makes up for all the Subway dates on the Island!! Just kidding those are great too and we are looking forward to sharing all the special memories together as we head back there tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone in Nebraska that loved us so well this summer, we will miss you dearly until we get to see you again!

Deep Sea Fishing

Some pictures and stories from our fishing trip!  Our fishing trip was a lot of fun and nearly fed us for a long time!  We got 1 bite near the time our fishing trip was over...and it was a giant marlin!!!  We were trolling along and all of the sudden the pole bent nearly in half and line started to fly off the reel as the marlin ran with it.  I grabbed the pole and started reeling and it jumped way out of the water.  It was huge.  I screamed pretty loud. I adjusted the drag a bit and started reeling again but the fish was gone!  It was only on the line about 30 seconds or so and it got away!  It had to have been a couple hundred pounds and it would have been so exciting to bring it in, but it got away.  We were all very bummed out to have lost the fish!

This is how Mindi spent most of our time fishing!  I got sick just walking to the front of the boat as it bobbed up and down on the waves, but Mindi just hung her feet over the edge and had fun like a rollercoaster!

Scuba Dive Pictures

A while since we posted and here are some pictures of our scuba dive with Matt's new camera.

2 fish eating some coral

Here is Mindi diving on Troy's Coral Head in the lagoon.

This video is from the top of the coral head showing a lot of the fish that we were able to look at as we dove this site.  It was pretty neet watching them swim around us!

Here is an anemone on the wall Oceanside.  That is Mindi on the left of the picture.  Two really great dives!

This shark got way to close for comfort during one of the dives.  The thing was very curious and swam to about 10-15 feet away before swimming off.  That was certainly exciting!!!  Troy's coral head is known for sharks and we weren't disappointed.

Here is another picture on top of the coral as we dove.

Visitors and Matt's Birthday

We were incredibly excited to have Sandy and Cal come out and visit during Spring break.  We had an awesome time with them and did so many fun things!  We took them all over the entire atoll, had them swimming with sharks, manta rays, an octopus and more, as well well as sailing the lagoon at sunset!  They got here Saturday, March 31st and were given a tour of the island that included our finest dining (Subway), some sunbathing, and snorkeling.  Here are some pictures from our week as well as a few from Matt's Birthday.

This picture was from shark pit overlooking the ocean.  This was taken on their last day here, so we were all sad to see them go. 

We reserved a boat and went up to Biji with our friends Mark and Tarah Yurovchak.  Here you can see everyone tied on to the boat floating in the lagoon.  This was Matt's first time driving the boat, but we made it there and back just fine.  We really enjoyed the blue water and the sun, as well as some snorkeling and relaxing!

The next day we went out in the evening on a sunset sailboat cruise.  The boat above passed us, we weren't on that one but it was similar to give you an idea of what we were riding on and what it looked like on the water.  The sunset cruise was new for us as well and we really had an amazing time.  We started out about 2 hours before sunset and got in about an hour after the stars came out.  Mindi had made dinner so we ate out under the stars on the boat.

Here is Mindi and Sandy on the sailboat right before we took off into the lagoon.

We also had the opportunity to fly up to Roi-Namur, even though we thought we might not be able to at one point.  We had an awesome time laying out and enjoying the sunshine.  We also really enjoyed the missile burgers, onion rings and pizza at the outrigger on Roi.  Here is Sandy and Cal posing on the scuba dock.

We went over to Ebeye one afternoon as well and here we are getting onto the ferry to take us over to Ebeye.  When we got there a couple of our students were waiting to meet us to give us a tour of the island.  This was really fun to have a tour from someone who lives there. 

Here is a picture of Ebeye right after we got off the dock and were walking onto the island.

Sandy and Cal got up real early most mornings because of the time change, and we got up with them one morning and went out and saw the sunrise.  Here is a picture of that sunrise.  

 For Matt's Birthday on Monday he wanted to go scuba diving, so here is a picture from out on the boat as we are about to go and do a dive on the Prinz Eugen sunken ship.  Mindi made Matt breakfast, gave him gifts and made it an awesome day!  It was an awesome birthday!  We had a great time diving with our friends and they surpised Matt with an ice cream cake right before we went out diving.

The picture above is from our dive on the Prinz Eugen.  We were down the side of it and Mindi pointed out what the view toward the surface was like!  A huge school of fish was swimming overhead at just the right time.

We also did a dive on Troy's Coral head, which is famous for having sharks on it!  This whitetip swam about 10-20 feet away from us and they told us later that it had a fish in its mouth, but we didn't see it!  Matt loves seeing sharks, so he was super excited about this dive.  Mindi doesn't get quite as excited about sharks, but she enjoyed the dive, too!

The top of Troy's Coral head is in about 15 feet of water and it is just covered in colorful fish!  Here are a few of them.  The coral head it out in the middle of the lagoon all by itself and definitely attracts a lot of neat fish to it.

Great birthday, Thanks hun.